Should I Move: Pros and Cons

Cons

Downtown has a high crime rate

Apartment complex is completely enclosed http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/OK-Oklahoma-City-Legacy-At-Arts-Quarter-758511.html#userresponses

Making it hard to receive visitors.  I hardly get visitors.  Hardly. Ever.  Almost never!

Longer commute to family.

Monthly expenses will increase due to increased rent/mortgage

Kids couldn’t really go outside by themselves??

 

Pros:

Much shorter commute

Apartment complex is completely enclosed

Close to parks, work, school, LIBRARY, restaurants!!!

Living a dream!

Fitness room

Great for biking

I don’t have to mow the yard

I don’t have to deal with those kids playing in the creek

I don’t have to clean up after family get togethers, because an apartment is too small for get togethers!

 

In addition to monthly obligations there are the upfront costs

Deposit: 350

Application fee: $30

Electricity deposit or maybe just a transfer fee

 

After much thought and consideration, I think I’m gonna stay where I am.  The economy is shaky and I really need to build my efund before I start  living the downtown chic life.   

What I should do in the meantime is forget about renting the house below market level.  If my sister wants to rent then it’ll have to be at market level, unless I’ve built my efund.  But until then I’m gonna work on keeping everything up to date so that if I decided to rent to strangers, everything will already look nice.

Should I move: The Financial Side

I am desperately wanting to rent out my home and move to a certain luxury downtown apartment complex.  Sigh… but we need to crunch the numbers.

1.       Rent $1,300 max.  The actual rent ranges from $1,248-$1,299

2.       My mortgage payment is ~$860/month.  That would be approximately $440 increase.  (I am going to rent it out to my sister and I probably wouldn’t charge more than the mortgage payment)

3.       I currently budget $200/month for gas.  I would save atleast $100/month from shortening my commute. 440-100=$340

4.       My heating bill which averages at $90/month would be gone.  340-90=$250 increase over mortgage payment

5.       but my electricity bill ($80) would increase probably by $50. $250 + 50=$300 increase over mortgage payment

6.       My home insurance should decrease from $1,200 to at least 1,000 year.    $16/month.  300-16= $284 (I have to get a quote)

7.       Water bill would be the same.

So If I get the apartment I’m taking away $284 that could go towards my efund or retirement.  Tsk, tsk.  But we’ll come back to that later.  If I do decide to move

I’m gonna have to cut my discretionary spending:

1.       Cut efund contributions from $500/month to 400/month.   I set my goal at giving $300/month ($3,600/yr).   I over estimate because life happens and  I want to stay on my five year 6 month of expenses efund goal no matter what.   $284-100=$184

2.       Cut fast food from 130 to 100.  $184-$30=$154

3.       Home maintenance fund from $250-$200. $154-$50=$100

4.       Cut car fund from $75-$50. $100-$25=$75 increase over mortgage payment

 

Man, that’s a long list just get an apartment.  I’ll be setting myself back in terms of money.  That is a big no-no in the world of personal finance.  But It’s a dream of mine to live downtown. I was gonna wait until my kids were grown and out of the house.  But with them both going to school downtown I can live that dream much sooner than I thought.  And with a lot of discipline I can use the amount of time that I save on the commute to work on earning money from blogging and writing.  Of course this is all dependent on me passing my PE exam and getting a raise.  I took the test in October and I won’t know until the middle of December if I passed it.  If I passed the test, I’m still not sure if it would be worth it.  ------ Needs more thought and research before I make a decision.  Right now I’m feeling too lazy to move anyway.